Coach Tom Stringer compiled a record as Hayden coach that
far exceeds any of the previous records of Hayden football coaches. It is hard
to imagine that any future coach will have the loyalty to stay long enough to
match his contribution . Hayden can only hope that we have another like him.

Tom Stringer graduated
from Hayden in 1979. He was a part of Hayden's resurgence in football and was
named to the Topeka Capital-Journal's ALL CLASS ALL STATE Honorable Mention list
in 1978.

Coach Stringer
had an outstanding career as a player at Pittsburg State University. He earned
1st Team All-American honors as an offensive lineman in 1981 - the same
year that Pittsburg State finished NAIA Division I National Runner-up. He was
inducted into Pittsburg State's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007.

After serving as
an assistant coach at Hayden, he became Head Coach in the fall of 1992. His
accomplishments in the football program were monumental. Hayden became a
power in CLASS 4A and the Centennial League. Hayden was a semi-finalist in
1995, 1997, 2002 and 2005. Hayden finished 2nd in 2003 and won the State
Championship in 1998 and 2004. The 1998 team was Hayden's first State champion
in football and first undefeated team since 1950. Coach Stringer's team won or
shared the Centennial League title seven times.

He was
known as the great motivator and was a prime mover in organizing the youth
football program for Hayden in Topeka (Saints Football). Athletic Director Bob
Taul said after learning that Coach Stringer would resign in 2007 that
Coach had laid the foundation for the football program to be successful into the
future.

He wanted to try some different things outside of coaching and wanted
to follow the college career of his son, Nick Stringer, at Kansas State. "I
worked every day to make this program something they wanted to be a part of and
something they could be proud of," he told Rick Peterson (TCJ) about his
players. "They believe they're going to win every football game whether
they do or not and that's the stuff that I dig."*